Sticky Little Kisses
by Andhera
Summary: Of all things girly, why did Cagalli have to like lip gloss? Athrun POV. One-shot.


This idea was sparked today morning and morphed wonderfully into the random moment(s) described below. I successfully managed to shirk all of my work until I finished writing this. Thank heavens for laptops and my bosses permission to take mine to work.

Do not expect a point, a moral or a punchline.

**Warning:** Mild sexual themes. My younger readers should refrain from reading this one. (Yes, I'm looking at you Amy darling.)

Athrun's POV. Attempted present tense, (whut!).

* * *

**Sticky Little Kisses**

Cagalli likes to kiss. Cagalli likes to kiss a lot. Unfortunately, she also likes lipstick, lip gloss, lip crèmes and everything else that paints her lips a colour different from what they naturally are. This isn't always true – sometimes she will paint her lips the exact shade of her natural lip colour. I never understood any of it. She hates make-up and dresses and stilettos and things that make her look superficially feminine. Yet, she obsessively collects lip glosses. I asked her about her strange infatuation once to which she said:

"Well, I have to like something girly. I am a girl after all." The way she had said it at the time made me believe her. Of course, because I believed her did not mean the fixation agreed with me.

"But why lip gloss?" I asked with a forlorn undertone in my voice.

She caught the subtle sadness in my voice and understood its origins. "Oh, I don't know honey. It just happened." When I did not look satisfied with the response, she added, "It's subtle and requires minimal work I guess."

"Fine," was my short disgruntled response.

She smiled and leaned forward to kiss me. The only reason I didn't move away was because we were alone in the library archives. As soon as our lips parted, the back of my hand instinctively moved to my lips. I could see a peach shimmer rub off onto my hand even though the kiss had been oh-so-short. Cagalli frowned at my actions, but nothing would persuade me to walk about with a faint peach shimmer on my lips; not even her happiness.

I do not like lip gloss. Lip gloss is to kissing what lack of contraception is to sex. It is sticky. It is shiny. It is colourful. It is everything that I do not want on my face in public. Cagalli is openly dissatisfied when I lean away from her kisses on the train or in the grocery store. She tries to remember not to wear it when we are going out. On days when we just end up together without plans to meet, she makes an exaggerated show of wiping it off with a tissue before kissing me hello.

Even without her dramatics, I feel guilty about making her choose between two things she loves. However, I am not man enough to parade the streets with glossy or colour smudged lips. I don't think I will ever be man enough for that.

Cagalli likes to play games with me. She goes out of her way to find sparkly lip balm which is almost translucent. On days she wears those, she will dive into my arms and kiss me a hundred times, as though we'd been apart for months instead of hours. Before I am given a chance to notice, my lips have a subtle shimmer instead of hers. She won't speak a word of this till she is about to leave.

"Oh by the way, that pear shimmer balm looks divine on you," she'd mumble against my lips before she dashed away.

Another game she loves to play is wearing bright reds and magentas and purples to bed. Yes, to bed. She climbs all over me in her lacy lingerie and her bright lipstick and takes utmost pleasure in painting my body in exotic shades like 'Cherries in the Snow' and 'Queen of Everything'. She finds the most interesting places to kiss – sensitive places, hard to reach places, I-did-not-know-I-had-nerves-there places. This game always ends with me experiencing excruciating amounts of pleasure. That alone is an adequate reason for me to allow her childish retaliation. Although, I well know that I can either play her game or be coerced into abstinence.

Why I fell madly in love with a mischievous devil incarnate is beyond me. Fate was a cunning, sadistic predator and I was her favourite prey.

Nonetheless, this elaborate problem – which is what it ultimately was, a problem – never fails to bother me. I do not like the nagging pull of guilt or the disappointment hidden in my precious amber eyes. It is unhealthy for my mental well being and I am sure that it has extremely slow deteriorative effects on my sanity.

So, I bravely decided to suck it up and deal with it. It would be my Valentine's Day present to her.

We met at the movie theatre. Dinner and a movie on February 14th is so cliché, I know, but so romantic. It's also the only time I'll be seen watching a romantic drama in public. Theatres are a good setting for Valentine's Day because they are dark and crowded. This provides privacy and the dire need to be pressed up against your date.

In line at the box office, I give her a box. She looks at it with the same happiness she looks at every box I have ever given her. Part of me wonders if I'll get the same reaction if I present her with the proverbial engagement ring box. That would be utterly depressing. Maybe I should try it sometime and see.

When she opens the box, she looks up at me with sparkling eyes.

"Are you serious!?" she exclaims happily, enthusiastically and slightly loudly for my liking. I merely smile and nod. "I thought it was chocolates."

Her reaction is predictable. I have given her chocolates for every single Valentine's Day we've been a couple. And next year, I will be back at the fancy chocolatier for their scrumptious chocolates. But this year, I had decided to give her the gift of kisses.

"I've never seen these before," she says, picking up a nude shade of the lip colour from the box, "CoverGirl Lip Stains… If I wear these you can't complain about kissing me in public, right? It's only fair. You're giving them to me after all."

"I won't complain," I say simply, "After those dry, they don't rub off."

"You can't fall for good advertising honey," she shakes her head, "so many brands say that."

"Well, I have seen that brand in action."

"Really?" Her words are almost undecipherable because she is speaking while she applies the nude shade to her lips. But, she does it so often that I am a master of understanding her various lisps.

"Give it a couple of minutes to dry completely," I warn as she looks at me appetizingly.

After exactly two minutes pass, she pulls me into a kiss. She doesn't really care that I am in the midst of handing my credit card over to the cashier who is flabbergasted by her unusual timing. When she finally releases me, I apologize to the cashier and gather our tickets before dragging her towards the auditorium 12.

"You know, you have some of it on your bottom lip, right?" she says triumphantly.

"Yeah," I sigh the word in defeat, "But it wasn't from you."

Cagalli's eyes widen and she looks prepared to attack me. "The hell? You let other girls kiss you with lip gloss on, but not me?"

The notion that Cagalli is not jealous or angry at the thought of other girls kissing me and instead is furious because I let them wear lip gloss while they did so is extremely disturbing. Her priorities are, as always, baffling.

I shake my head because there is nothing else I can do. "Why would I let other girls kiss me, idiot?"

"How else did you get Berry Suede Lip Stain on your lips then, huh?" she asks accusingly.

"Well…" This is not a story I want to impart, especially not to someone who is infamous for being a tease.

"You… _are_ cheating on me!" There they are - those large, watery puppy eyes that I can not resist.

"If you _must _know…" I trail off, hoping she would not need to know.

She only nods, saying, "I _must_ know."

I sigh, for possibly the fourth time this evening, and the movie hasn't even begun. In fact, we haven't even made it into the auditorium yet.

"The sales person at that store you go to insisted that the only way I would believe the miraculously long wearing this stuff was if I tried it on myself. Before I had a choice, the stupid sales person had swiped it across my bottom lip. By the time I could do anything about it, the colour had dried and I couldn't wipe it off. Make-up remover didn't even work! That's actually why I bought it... in every single colour they had." I am as vague with the details as I am allowed to be and quickly move onto a different topic.

"Ah, so what you're saying is," Shit, she had it all figured out. "…that Jason, the flaming homosexual, who I've been telling you has a huge crush on you, found you alone in the store and started hitting on you when he found you looking at lipstick. You know, he wears lipstick too, right? Some metrosexual guys go overboard with their grooming."

"Whatever," I huff with my arms crossed, "He does not have a crush on me."

"What makes you say that? Except your blatant denial…" She loved asking cheeky questions.

"Why would he like someone who is so obviously unattainable? I am not gay, and today aside, I have always entered that store only with you." I do not like the direction this conversation is taking.

"Oh, darling," Her laugh tells me that I am not going to like what she is about to say. "Everyone in that store thinks you are my gay best friend!"

"What!?" My eyes would have rolled onto the floor if it was anatomically possible. "Why?"

"Because, all I buy there is lip gloss. And every time I try to kiss you, you back away." She explains. "So everyone is under the impression that my love for you is unrequited because you aren't straight. The fact that you are more beautiful than I am doesn't help matters."

"I think you're prettier!" I hope my voice does not sound as desperate to her as it does in my head.

"That's sweet baby, but not everyone else does. You do have luscious hair and striking eyes and flawlessly smooth skin." She runs a finger down my cheek and neck and I know she wants to fluster me.

I check my watch quickly. There is still time.

We skip the movie that night (upon my vehement insistence). Instead, we barge into the make-up store barely seconds before they close and I spend a good ten minutes with Cagalli pinned against the lip gloss wall with my tongue down her throat.

I'm sorry Jason, but there is someone out there who will love you much more than I do. There has to be, because I don't love you at all.

When they finally tell us to fuck off on the store PA system because the store is closed, we go home and have sex till neither of us can move.

Needless to say, I never again so much as flinched when Cagalli kissed me in public. I would rather share ten thousand sticky little kisses with her than be confused for the gay best friend ever again.

* * *

1. I ended up toning down the sexuality of this piece because I knew, in the back of my mind, that certain people would still read it. (I told you not to read this Amy! =O!!!)

2. I did not mean to come across as homophobic as I am not. I know a few straight boys who tend to get hit on by other boys and are so, so insecure about it. Being as beautiful as he is, Athrun has sometimes reminded me of these boys and the flailing insecurity just seemed to fit him. His mother probably put him in dresses as a child.

3. I thought about writing Cagalli's POV to this too. But when it was done, it felt complete the way it was. Cagalli's POV is still floating around my head, so I might make this a two-shot in the futre should I feel so compelled to write her version down. However, writing in present tense is _tedious_ and that might just turn me off completely.

4. Speaking of writing, I was reading this vaguely characterized, incomplete original story I'd written a few years back and as I read it my mind screamed Mwu/Cagalli. I wonder how many of you would shoot me/stab me/otherwise mutilate me for writing Mwu/Cagalli?

I will cease using my Author's Notes as a blog now. Thank you for reading! Please review, my sweet, kind readers. Please review.

PS. CG Lip Stains are an actual product and copyright to CoverGirl. They apparently taste awful, but I acquire tastes very quickly. This is my new found lip gloss brand because it is amazing longwear colour. I once tried to get the Coral shade out of my lips and failed miserably. However, it works for me and might not for you because we each have unique lips. So I will refrain from endorsing it publically.


End file.
